100 Killed, 9,000 Injured In China Hailstorm

PEKING — The worst hailstorm to strike central China in a century killed more than 100 people and injured at least 9,000 others this week in Sichuan province, officials said Thursday.

Huge hailstones began pelting southeastern Sichuan near China`s World War II capital of Chongqing (Chungking) early Tuesday, striking 13 districts and counties, the official China Central Television reported.

The death and injury toll was reported by officials in Chongqing by phone to Peking.

They said more than 1,000 rescue workers, including high-ranking Communist Party and government officials, medical teams and soldiers, were engaged in a large-scale relief effort.

The nationwide television broadcast showed the body of a victim on a stretcher near a village of collapsed earthen houses, a woman whose head was bandaged with blood-stained gauze and a gutted schoolhouse.

Rescue workers were carrying those seriously injured to local hospitals and erecting clay and straw shelters for thousands of survivors left homeless by the storm, which demolished more than 35,000 houses and destroyed 7,700 acres of crops, the officials said.

The region`s electricity, transport and communications links were restored partially after having been severed by the storm, which blew down 2,000 telephone poles, the officials said.

Schools and shops were closed and farm work came to a halt after the tempest struck China`s most heavily populated province.

The television said the storm was a ``tremendous disaster`` that had caused ``extremely serious harm to the people`s livelihood and property.``